In CCTV’s prime time show devoted to the Consumer Rights Protection Day, a voiceover narrated that, contrary to its assertion that food not served within a certain amount of time will be discarded to ensure customers freshness, the McDonald’s restaurant in Beijing’s Sanlitun area reset its timer or tampered with its Best Befores.

Video clip of the CCTV show

“At 12: 35 p.m., a tray of chicken wings were fried. The chicken wings are supposed to be kept for only 30 minutes. But until 2:35 p.m., the wings were still stored inside universal heating cabinets,” the voiceover narrates.

“According to McDonald’s policy, pies must be served within 90 minutes after they are cooked. Each pie has paper packaging, on which the kitchen is supposed to note the expiration time with a marker. However, a batch of pies that should have been discarded at 10:20 p.m. were able to survive until 11:20 p.m. with a stroke of a pen. Some workers even stripped off the old packaging, wrapped them with new ones and rewrote its expiration time.” “No McDonald’s restaurant would actually discard it. They all winked at it,” a worker said to the reporter while the hidden camera was still rolling.

The reporter also caught the restaurant using a bag of meat patties two days after their expiration date. “That gives more reason to use it immediately,” a McDonald’s worker said. Another worker dropped a patty onto the floor. He picked up the tainted patty and reused it, “Germs die the moment they are fried. No biggie.”

On the morning of March 16, the day after the show aired, the Beijng police made a sudden visit to the restaurant and inspected its food storage. A short while after the police left, the restaurant closed.

Reporets swarmed into the Sanlitun McDonald’s restaurant for the company’s comments.

Netizens watched the fire with much interest and enthusiasm. Undoubtedly, many condemned McDonald’s for fooling consumers. But quite a number of netizens questioned CCTV’s newsgathering method and its motive. Others sneer at how CCTV picks on small points to criticize. Some even have the suspicion that it was a PR battle that McDonald’s at first lost to CCTV, but later fought back with more cunningness.

Wang Yichao, a Chinese media person, criticized the masquerade in exchange for the petty scandal:

CCTV sent its undercover reporter to hide in McDonalds’ for 6 months before he was finally able to expose on the show its very trivial problems. In my opinion, this is typical abuse of undercover reporting and media power. Undercover reporting is not really forbidden. But it should be related to urgent and major public interests and should be used with caution.

The vote, organized by Xinmin Evening Post, asks netizens which party do they trust more, CCTV or McDonalds. Until press time, among the 800 netizens who participated, 39.6% said they are for McDonald’s, 27.4% said they are in favor of CCTV, and the rest 32.9% support neither.

An event page set up by user @Gong_Min, which called on netizens to order a meal at a McDonalds’ restaurant as a way of support. (The vote page has already been taken down by @Gong_Min himself.)

Selected comments from Sina Weibo

广博雅正_丶航：I have the feeling that this is gonna be a hit. CCTV, if you have time, hide in state-owned enterprises. Guess you must have hidden in M for several months.

@吃拧了 ：Even though I usually don’t eat junk food, McDonald’s are among the best in terms of sanitation. Quality SOP (standard operating procedure), uniform supply chain, electronic and efficient ordering system, fast and convenient delivery management system, and its marketing and PR, these are all what Chinese businesses should learn. Guess any restaurant in today’s China would be dirtier than McDonald’s.

PenfoldsBin95Grange：Put aside the question of whether McDonald’s should be criticized by CCTV on March 15. There is no denying that McDonald’s, KFC and the like always sell junk food. Those who support McDonald’s, if you have kids, why not let your kids eat McDonald’s and KFC every day?

Misakin：Actually~ Who doesn’t know these after working part-time at McDonald’s?

陆碧玉-ISLAND：I trust neither. But McDonald’s strategy of shifting focus of attention is indeed a clever move, and a risky one.

6 comments to “McDonald’s bitten by China’s state watchdog over food safety. Which side do netizens take?”

[...] follow the working instructions.Dare you enjoy McDonald’s food anymore?The Ministry of Tofu posted photos of reporters flooding McDonald’s Sanlitun location in Beijing to request comment, and posted a number of netizen comments from Sina Weibo. A number of posts [...]

Chinese propaganda aimed at helping Chinese restaurants flourish and framing McDonalds. You’re telling me that any ‘Mom and Pop’ restaurant is any different? I blame the individual works, not McDonalds corporation.